{"covers": [9925324], "key": "/works/OL17986187W", "authors": [{"type": {"key": "/type/author_role"}, "author": {"key": "/authors/OL261866A"}}], "title": "Indenture & exile", "subject_places": ["Caribbean Area"], "subjects": ["Social life and customs", "East Indians in literature", "Indentured servants", "East Indians", "Social conditions", "History"], "type": {"key": "/type/work"}, "description": {"type": "/type/text", "value": "Some 150 years ago, the first jahajibhais (\u201cship brothers\u201d) set off\r\nfrom India to work as indentured laborers in Caribbean plantations.\r\nTheir descendants now make up numerical majorities in Guyana and Surinam\r\nand a significant presence in much of the Caribbean. Yet many flee the\r\ncountries of their birth, seeking asylum in Britain, Canada, and the\r\nUnited States. This volume, which consists of selected papers from a\r\nYork Indo-Caribbean Studies Conference, revolves around the\r\nIndo-Caribbean experience of its participants. This experience has many\r\nfacets: the conditions of indenture; the development of urban\r\nbourgeoisie; labor movements; protest; political organization; race\r\nrelations; community and religious organization; the conditions of\r\nwomen, sports, and education; and the emergence of fiction writers like\r\nNaipaul, Selvon, and Khan.\r\n\r\nIn addition to the introduction, Birbalsingh also contributes a chapter\r\non Jamaican Indians, and participates in panels on Indo-Caribbean\r\nliterature and on Indo-Caribbean cricketers. Other outstanding\r\nparticipants include Cheddi Jagan, George Lamming, Sam Selvon, E.\r\nMoutoussamy, and Hugh Tinker. Such a volume not only reflects the\r\nkaleidoscopic experience of Indo-Caribbean exiles but also mirrors their\r\ncourage, creativity, joys, sufferings, achievements, and persecution.\r\nAlthough most contributors are academics, a few\u2014like Lamming, Sarusky,\r\nand Dabydeen\u2014are professional writers. Three are politicians who may\r\nbe classified as being on the left or far left of the political\r\nspectrum. Much of what they say about exploitation, resistance, ethnic\r\nalienation, and racial discrimination may indeed illuminate situations\r\nin other Third World countries, and perhaps in all places with a\r\ncolonial inheritance. Although colonialism or colonial domination is\r\nconsidered to be a passing phase in world history, its objective\r\nconsequences and the subjective experiences of colonial subjects should\r\nbe time and again shared and expressed in conferences and in\r\npublications of this nature."}, "latest_revision": 3, "revision": 3, "created": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2018-11-17T21:59:22.301052"}, "last_modified": {"type": "/type/datetime", "value": "2025-03-25T17:25:24.973230"}}